


i prayed for you before i called you mine

by kittymills



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Time, I WRITE WHAT I WANT, Light Angst, M/M, Married Life, Married Sheith, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, SHEITH - Freeform, Self-Indulgent, Shiro POV, Time Skips, canonverse, season 2-ish then time skips, soft domestic moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:33:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25333195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: The Black Lion gives Shiro everything he never knew he wanted.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 110





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this self indulgent au rattling around in my brain for over a year but writing is hard these days. 
> 
> Inspired by this [ [PLAYLIST] ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Ql6VAk2QlR7mm33TSH2rY?si=cTqBQ6rLSY2XCeSOvP_A0g)  
> 

When the dawn breaks, Shiro opens his eyes and is born again.

It feels like the opposite of drowning. The hard push towards the surface, the rush around him as light hits the back of his eyes and they struggle to adjust to the bright light bathing the space he finds himself in. His heartrate is thunderous in his throat. After a moment, it settles when he realises the absence of danger… and of pain.

He takes in his surroundings slowly. He doesn’t recognize it. Cool tones, soft edges and billowing curtains shielding what must be a window. A bedroom, it seems. He looks down, surprised to see his chest bare and crisp ivory sheets pooled low around his hips. He pulls himself up, fighting through the initial wave of dizziness, closing his eyes briefly before opening them once again. Everything feels so foreign a part of him wondered if it would still be here when he opened his eyes again. It feels a lot like a dream he never let himself have.

He takes a moment to allow his gaze to travel around the space, taking in more detail. His thoughts trip over themselves in his mind. Where was he? Why doesn’t he recognise this place? Why does it feel comfortable? Why does he feel safe here, a breath away from a haze of pain he can’t name.

The curtains shift in a light breeze and it carries his gaze to the other side of the room. Beside the wide bed he finds himself in, there is a small table. A delicate vine grows from a glass wine bottle, something that looks as though it’s been lovingly salvaged from a night in. He stares at it for a moment, the symbol on the label an odd kind of V that tickles the back of his mind before it’s washed away on the absence of memory. He feels like he should know it, but his mind is blank.

Next to the vine is a lamp and a discrete charging station for a mobile device, but nothing else offers him much clues. Not until he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and spies a pair of boots in the corner of the room, beside a door he notices for the first time.

A chill creeps down his spine when he realises a second pair, obviously smaller in size.

He expects his gut to start screaming. He doesn’t know where he has woken up, he’s almost naked in a bed he doesn’t recognize and he’s not alone. He has no memory of the night before, or really of…

He tries to cast his mind back. What does he remember?

_You guys are a little more excited about ice samples than I am._

A frown forms across his mouth. But that can’t be right. He’s not on a distant planet’s moon right now, that much is obvious. So what happened between now and…. How ever long it took them to get back to Earth?

He glances again at the shoes and wonders idly if they’re Matt’s, then quickly discards the thought. Matt wouldn’t place his so neatly. They’d be scattered on the other side of the room had they been Matt’s.

And they were too small to be Adam;s.

Shiro rubs his face, as though he could rub the cobwebs inside his brain away. Tiredness washes over him but it disappears at the creak of the door being pushed open. His body tenses in an uncomfortable kind of panic before the familiar figure that steps through causes it to vanish as quickly as it had come.

Shiro’s mouth grows dry as he stares and a small slice of acknowledgement slots into space that the smaller pair of boots belongs to this man. To _him_.

Keith. 

It’s unmistakably Keith, yet somehow… not. Keith is dressed casually, barefoot with well-worn jeans riding on his hips and a soft white tee tight enough across his frame to show the surprising broadness of his shoulders. His hair is longer too, the same shaggy cut but longer tied back against his neck but his eyes are as brilliant as always and they turn on Shiro with a warmth and openness that takes Shiro’s breath away.

“Keith?”

The man in question flashes him a quick upturn of his lips. A lopsided little smile that Shiro traces with his eyes. It’s been a long time since Keith has given him a smile like that… hasn’t it?

“Who else would it be?”

Keith crosses the room, a mug of what might be coffee in his hands. It smells good, the scent catching Shiro’s nose as Keith places the steaming mug down on the side table next to the vine.

Shiro ignores it. He can’t take his eyes off Keith. The realization sits so uncomfortably hard in his heart that this Keith looks so much older. Confident, comfortable. At ease in a way he never truly was in his younger years. A feeling Shiro doesn’t quite recognize at first rises to sit under his skin. It startles him to realise a moment later that it’s attraction.

“Keith,” he manages to rasp out. Why does his throat hurt like he’s been screaming? “Keith, where am I? How did I get here?”

Keith gives him a small laugh. Shiro watches through new eyes how Keith tosses his head back lightly and the light streaming in through the window catches his hair with violet highlights. Breath catches in his throat as Keith bares his teeth in a wide, teasing smile.

Breathtaking.

“You really didn’t have that much to drink last night, did you?” Keith chuckles lightly. “I know we joke about you being a light weight but-“

Ever sharp, Keith trails off when he realises Shiro isn’t laughing along. His demeanour switches instantly and he sits close to Shiro on the bed. Shiro can feel the heat rolling off him. It feels a little like the morning sun.

Keith stares at him closely in concern. “Shiro, are you alright?”

A part of Shiro wants to downplay his confusion. There must be a simple explanation for all this. There has to be. And a part of him wants to follow the old pattern of trying to shield Keith from his worries. He’s never been good at it though. Keith didn’t appreciate the ‘bullshit protection’ as he once put it, and Shiro guesses that this older, sharper version of him would appreciate it even less.

“I’m… I’m not sure,” he confesses quietly. “I don’t know where I am.”

There’s a tick of silence and Keith’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. Tension coils across his shoulders. “Shiro,” he says carefully, as though testing Shiro is even aware of his own name. Something about that grates a little and Shiro feels the frustration building low in his gut. “We’re home. This is our apartment. We went out for dinner last night with Matt and his new girlfriend and you had a few drinks then we came home. You passed out sometime before midnight.”

Shiro can hear the words Keith is saying, but none of them make sense. He casts around in his memory for something to verify Keith’s words but there’s nothing but a dull emptiness. And he knows Keith wouldn’t lie. He knows Keith well enough for that. _But why can’t he remember?_

Keith’s voice changes then, so does his expression. He doesn’t move away physically but he’s guarded now. “Shiro, what’s going on with you?”

“I… I don’t remember,” Shiro finally manages to say. It’s hard to make the words form in his mouth. His mind is a hamster on a wheel, desperately spinning for answers but finding nothing but dark space instead. “I don’t remember how I got here, I don’t remember-“ he glances at Keith suddenly aware that he’s almost naked under the sheets and the familiarity that Keith had when he had walked into the room. Shiro’s brain was badly trying to shy away from it, but something in the very core of him told him that whatever his relationship with Keith had grown into, it was more than the simple friendship they’d shared when he was younger.

The idea that maybe the night before, he’d had this Keith in his arms made his entire body flame. Not with embarrassment, but with a need and a desire he’d long refused to acknowledge.

“Alright, so what _do_ you remember?”

Shiro runs a hand through his hair. He uses his right arm and something about the motion twigs something buried deep at the back of his mind. The motion shouldn’t feel as foreign as it does. For a long moment, he stares at his right palm before dropping it to his lap.

“I remember space,” Shiro replies. “I remember the spread of the stars, the cold. I remember that like… like I was just there. I remember the shuttle and the first glimpse we had of Kerberos out the viewport and-”

“Shiro,” Keith’s expression twists. “The Kerberos mission was five years ago. You and Matt and Commander Holt all came back heroes.”

For a long moment, there’s just static in Shiro’s mind. Something Keith says doesn’t ring true. He can feel it in his bones. But he would be lying if he told himself he didn’t want to believe it. “What? No, I-“

Shiro trails off. He remembers standing on the surface as Matt chattered excitedly about ice samples and then… then everything else is blank.

Five years, Keith said. _Five years._

Has he really lost five years of his life?

A spark of panic grips him. If he’s lost five years, how many more did he have left?

Without realizing he’s moving, he gets to his feet, intent on hurrying to the bathroom only to realize he has no idea where it is. He makes a noise of frustration and then Keith is there in front of him, pressing a hand onto his chest, right above his thundering heart.

“Shiro, it’s okay,” Keith tells him. His voice is quiet but firm. He’s startlingly taller this close than what Shiro remembers. “ _You’re_ okay. Whatever this is, we’ll figure this out. Together, like we always do. I lo-“

Whatever else Keith had been able to say, he cuts himself off with the snap of his jaw. And Shiro _knows_. Somehow he knows what Keith had been about to say because the echo of it beats against his own chest and he doesn’t know or why because he had been so sure he had sealed this desire away under lock and key so tightly the truth could never been known.

But here it was, fluttering at the edges and Shiro’s stomach rolls. He has to fumble for the bed to hold himself up, but Keith is there instead. His hands are stronger than Shiro ever imagined they could be.

“Shiro,” he pleads softly and the sound of it tears at him. It’s soft, the way Keith says his name. Shiro’s eyes close to savour the sound of it.

And in the deepest part of him, a wall is shattering, collapsing to rubble at his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Shiro gasps, still reeling. “I just… I need a minute.”

“Let me get Matt,” Keith says as he helps Shiro back to the bed. “He has to know more about this than I do.”

* * *

Matt arrives not long after, letting himself into the apartment without even announcing himself. Part of that surprises Shiro, the ease and comfort that Matt has in what is apparently Keith and his space - _their_ space, but part of it makes perfect sense. He and Matt had been in incredibly close quarters during that long mission to Kerberos. They were family now.

“Okay, so run this by me again,” Matt says after Keith has haltingly explained Shiro’s apparent memory loss. Matt is wearing a Galaxy Garrison officer’s uniform, all grey and black with just a splash of gold against his shoulders. His face is serious, that same crease between his brows that told Shiro he was determined to solve this problem even if Shiro had his doubts. “You… you woke up this morning with no memory of the last five years?”

Shiro nods. He’s dressed now and they’ve moved into the living space of the apartment. It was one thing to explore the bedroom and the closet full of clothes he didn’t recognize but another to venture out into the living space and see shelves full of awards and memories and treasures of a life he’s lived but he doesn’t remember sharing with Keith.

And then there had been the ring.

He hadn’t noticed it until he went into the bathroom but it was unmistakably his. Large, smooth and shiny platinum that matched the one on Keith’s finger perfectly.

His heart was torn between an inexplicable peace and a devastating sadness that he just doesn’t _remember._

He tries to ignore the way Matt’s eye keep darting towards Keith but he answers with a sigh. “Yes.”

Matt’s gaze lands on Keith once again and there’s a look there Shiro can’t quite decipher. Keith pulls himself to his feet and picks up a dark leather jacket that’s draped over the back of a chair. Shiro recognizes it. It’s the one he had resized before he left for Kerberos, the one he’d given to Keith. It stirs something inside his chest to see Keith don it so easily, but that may also be just the way Keith seems to avoid his eye.

“I’m going to head out for a bit,” Keith says. Shiro’s gut twists at the lace of pain that makes Keith’s voice rougher than it should be. He knows he’s responsible for it.

“Keith, you don’t have to leave,” he tries to say but Keith shakes his head and cuts him off.

“It will give you guys a chance to talk.” He looks directly at Shiro then. “Maybe Matt can jog your memory better than I can.”

Shiro wants to stop him, to keep Keith close. There’s something wholly new he has to discover between them but he recognizes the pain it’s causing Keith too. There’s just a small, irrational part of him that worries if Keith disappears out that door, he may not come back and Shiro isn’t prepared for that.

He tries to put himself in Keith’s shoes, trying to imagine what it must be like to wake up and have the man you’ve promised to share your life with suddenly not remember anything about your relationship. Nothing about your plans. None of your secrets.

Shiro wonders if he would handle all this as gracefully as Keith is. He’s not sure he would. Didn’t Adam tell him he was selfish more times than Shiro could count? Of all the things they fought about, it was the one thing Shiro privately agreed with. He had been selfish when he was with Adam. He had been selfish about wanting Kerberos more than wanting to live the rest of his life in mediocrity.

But he’s never been selfish with Keith.

The door slams and then Keith is gone, leaving him alone with Matt. Matt, who’s watching him warily, a pleasant kind of curve to his mouth that doesn’t match the cogs turning behind his eyes.

A heavy silence reigns save for the sound of a car passing by on the street outside.

“So,” Shiro says awkwardly. Where does he start? Where does he start to recollect the five years of his life he’s missing. Absently, he squeezes the metal band in his palm. Part of him wants to put it on, part of him needs more answers first. “I’m married. To Keith.”

Matt seems somewhat amused by that. “Yeah, you’ve been married almost a year now. Keith insisted on it before you started your treatment.”

Shiro’s brain doesn’t know which part to focus on first. “Keith and I were dating? And what treatment?”

“Oh boy,” Matt says and for the first time, his easy smile falters. “Okay, so… Phew. This is going to be something. Well, what’s the last memory you have?”

Shiro looks at him steadily. “Standing with you and Commander Holt on Kerberos, drilling for ice samples. You were pretty excited, talking about meeting aliens… And then… Anything after that feels… strange. Like a blur. I guess it’s still there in my mind but it’s… it’s just… weird flashes I don’t understand and I can’t _see_. And the more I try to concentrate, the harder it is to make any sense of anything.” Shiro shakes his head. “How can I just lose five years?”

“Maybe this is something to do with your treatment,” Matt murmurs thoughtfully before quickly discarding the idea with an animated wave of his hand. “No, that wouldn’t make any sense but... but we'll get you checked out just in case.”

“And Keith and I… how?”

“Well, you and Adam broke up over Kerberos-“

“ _That_ part I remember,” he cuts in dryly.

Matt shrugs then continues. “By the time we came back and got out of quarantine, Keith had graduated. Top of his class no less. The brass was so impressed by us making it back from Kerberos that they gave us our own choice of missions to fly, and you chose Keith. You figured he’d earned it. You guys did the Calisto run, and somewhere along the lines, you finally noticed that crush he’d been nursing for you for all those years.”

“Keith… Keith had a crush on me?”

Matt opens his mouth and an expression flitters across his face like he doesn’t know if he should laugh or maybe cry. Shiro feels the same. He remembers having Keith’s back in the early days when he was almost expelled, and he remembers Keith having his when he fought with and eventually broke up with Adam. He remembers the runs out into the desert surrounding the base on the hoverbikes, the wind in his hair and the dust in his nose. He remembers Keith with him standing in the shadow of the ship that would take them to the edge of the solar system, of pressing his tags into Keith’s palm the night before the launch.

But he doesn’t remember Keith having a _crush_.

“Yeah, he did, and not long after you got back, you guys officially hooked up,” Matt finally confirms. “The Garrison grounded you for good after that mission though, because of your… condition, but then an option for an experimental treatment came up. There wasn’t any guarantee it would work, but you wanted to try it. You told Keith if the experiment was a success, and if you had more to offer him, you would ask him to marry you.”

Matt pauses then gives him a wry look. “Well, you can imagine Keith’s thoughts on that. He didn’t want to wait whether the treatment worked or not… said he wanted to be with you. See, that’s the nice thing about Keith. He’s just as stubborn as you are.”

Shiro tries to find it in him to be offended by that, but the words are too close to an echo of an argument with Adam from long ago.

Matt shrugs with half a smile and continues. “So, you guys got married in your uniforms in Sanda’s office and mom threw you both a party, which was _awesome,_ by the way.”

Shiro takes a moment to digest that. “And… and the treatment worked? I’m… cured?”

Matt’s expression turns serious. “It was touch and go for a while but… yeah, the last scans you had gave you the all clear. And you’ve been clear ever since.”

Shiro lets out a rough breath and sags back against the couch. It feels strange to hear Matt laying out the last few years of his life like this but frustrating that he just… _can’t remember_. He scrubs the heel of his palms into his eyes. “I just… I don’t-“

Matt shuffles beside him and pulls out a datapad. “Hey, what if you watched some old vids? Maybe seeing it will trigger something more than just hearing me talk. Worth a shot, right?”

Shiro looks up. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s worth a shot.”

* * *

Keith slinks back into the apartment a few hours later and Matt takes his cue to yawn, stretch and pat Keith on the shoulder as he says his farewells and leaves them alone.

Shiro finds himself eyeing Keith in a new light. Keith… but not the Keith from his memories. Keith grown into the potential Shiro had always known was inside him.

“Anything?” Keith asks without meeting his eye. He busies himself with kicking off his boots and slumps into the armchair across from the couch. It’s the furthest one away from Shiro sits without being in a different room. It leaves Shiro with a whisper of disquiet.

“No, I’m sorry, nothing new but I did look through some personal logs.” He clears his throat. “I watched our wedding video.”

A rush of heat accompanies the words as he says them. Shiro had watched it more than once. It had been so strange to see himself on the screen, saying his vows and promising to love Keith forever more. They’d laughed during the short ceremony too, a private joke between them that drone’s audio didn’t pick up. But it was Keith’s face that Shiro found himself watching over and over as Keith slipped the silver band onto his finger and they kissed, one of Shiro’s hands cupping the back of Keith’s head as he leans in. And that kiss… he’d stared at it avidly, tracing the way their mouths fit together so perfectly, imagining what it would be like to have Keith’s mouth on his. It was breathtaking to realise that his body already knew Keith’s touch, even if his mind didn’t.

And then, his own face as they drew apart to the sounds of cheers, soft and indulgent and a little bit wondrous too, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

Shiro had watched it all unfold over and over and still couldn’t believe it.

Keith pauses in the act of tugging off his socks. “Oh, yeah?”

It aches a little to hear the hope in his voice. Shiro looks at Keith and his heart is full, it always has been. He’s loved Keith for years, but it’s been a different kind of love. One that he firmly kept in check, at least until he climbed aboard the ship to Kerberos. He had already given up too much to see out his dream, and Keith was too young anyway.

But apparently, that had all changed when he’d come back.

He watches Keith closely now, somehow unsurprised at how well he can read the tension and the held back hope across his shoulders. Keith peeps up at Shiro from behind his hair, but it’s been trimmed into something closer to garrison regulation since he’s been an officer despite the small ponytail so it doesn’t offer him the defence it once did. The glance is somewhat foreign and familiar and endearing all at once.

They’d been more than just friends. They’d fallen in love once. Shiro wonders if they might again.

Their eyes catch from across the room.

“I bet memory loss wasn’t something you were counting on when you said those vows,” Shiro hears himself say. There’s a slight edge of bitterness that accompanies the words that surprises even him.

Keith frowns. “All in, Shiro. I told you that when you tried to push me away before your treatment.”

That causes Shiro to pause with his mouth slightly parted before he snaps it shut with a rush of guilt. He doesn’t need Keith to clarify because he knows himself. And he knows the moment Keith realizes he knows it.

Keith gives him a slow smile. It’s a little cocky, a little smug. “Yeah, you remember that though, huh?”

“No,” Shiro says soberly. “But… uh. Sounds like something I would do.”

Keith’s smile falters and his gaze skitters away.

Shiro wonders where they can possibly go from here.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been tough in sheithdom lately and with That Date coming up fast, here's a little offering to help soothe some souls <3 Keep Sheithing, you guys. Keith and Shiro never gave up and neither should you <3 <3 <3

The Galaxy Garrison’s medical wing is much like Shiro remembers it from the years before Kerberos. Lots of white and grey with the occasional splash of orange, serious faced med techs passing by in their issued uniforms and scrubs. It always had a particular scent in the air, something that always carried Shiro back to the early days of his diagnosis and the fear that surrounded him.

This time though, he isn’t alone. 

Keith stands beside the bed where Shiro has made himself comfortable, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his expression tightly guarded. He hadn’t donned his uniform today and when Shiro had looked at him questioningly, Keith had glanced away before finally confessing that both of them had arranged to finally take some leave.

Turns out, it was supposed to be their honeymoon.

They didn’t get a chance after their wedding, Keith had told him on the drive over. They spent one night in a flash hotel in the city that the Holts had surprised them with and then the next day, Shiro’s treatment had begun in earnest.

It hadn’t been easy. It shouldn’t even have been possible to do what they did, but it had _worked_.

And through it all, Keith had sat beside him and gripped his hand and fed him soup and cleaned up his sick when the pain got too much and he couldn’t keep anything down.

There is a lot Shiro is frustrated not to remember about his life, but from what he hears of the treatment, he’s glad he doesn’t remember that.

He can’t shake the niggle of guilt that rides low against his chest though. A different Shiro had planned this time off together with his husband, had looked forward to it, and now they were here with the sting of antiseptic in their noses instead.

“I suppose this means we should cancel the trip. I’m sorry, Keith. On top of everything else, now you might miss out on your vacation.”

Keith stares at him, a familiar spark in his eye that has Shiro instinctively wanting to back pedal. He’s finding this tough, if he admits it to himself. This Keith has turned out to be more of an equal than the Keith in his memory ever was and it’s… disconcerting.

“I don’t give a fuck about the vacation, Shiro. I just need to know you’re alright.”

Shiro feels immediately chastised by that. He opens his mouth to apologize just as a tall woman in a white coat with a stethoscope around her neck strides in. Something about her tugs at Shiro but he’s not sure he’s ever met her before. She’s beautiful, with dark skin and bright blue eyes set under pale curls pinned neatly against her nape. He watches curiously as Keith explains the situation to her, the ease that Keith has in her presence tells him that she’s not a stranger.

Or. She shouldn’t be.

“Oh, Shiro. You really have given us quite the pickle today,” she says with a warm smile. Her accent is unfamiliar, British perhaps, although it doesn’t quite ring true to his unexperienced ears. She lifts up a thin flashlight and quickly shines it into his eyes. He squints against the brightness.

“It’s a bit of a pickle for me too. Any suggestions, doctor?”

“Well, what we know so far is that it would be highly unlikely to be related to your treatment,” she starts. “It’s possible it could be related to a virus of some sort but you’re not showing any other symptoms. You haven’t hit your head recently, have you? Haven’t fallen out of bed?”

He catches a teasing note in her tone a moment before he hears Keith’s low chuckle. It’s unexpected enough that he can’t stop himself from staring. What kind of relationship with this doctor do they have for her to be so playful and for even Keith to laugh? It’s another piece of the puzzle he’s woken up with that he can’t fit into place.

The lack of clarity makes his jaw ache.

The doctor runs through a few more tests with him and during it all, he learns her name is Allura and that she is the brainchild behind the treatment that cured his disease. He also learns she is a close friend and she’s sad when he tells quietly confesses he can’t find much that makes sense in the trashed shreds of his memories since the Kerberos mission.

“Look, for what it’s worth, I don’t know if staying cooped up in your apartment until your memory comes back is the right course of action,” she says later after what feels like every test and scan on the planet has been performed. Shiro has more patience for it than most, monitoring like this has been part of his life for as long as he can remember but somehow, this is different. “Perhaps it would simply be best to continue on business as usual. Some quality time together might bring it all back.”

Shiro keeps his gaze focused on Allura but he’s aware of Keith frowning slightly. “Are you sure about that?” Keith asks. “Wouldn’t it be better to stay here?”

It takes a second before the sudden sinking sensation in Shiro’s stomach to register as disappointment before he shoves it away. Of course Keith wouldn’t want to gallivant off on what was supposed to be their honeymoon. Keith had suddenly found himself tied to a man that doesn’t know him. Not like he should. And Shiro doesn’t need it spelled out to him. He might be wearing a wedding band on his finger, but right now, it probably doesn’t mean what it should.

The Shiro Keith had married isn’t him. And the Keith he remembers…. This isn’t the same Keith.

“Look, Keith,” he starts, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. “I don’t want to make this any harder than it needs to be. I know this is… uncomfortable, that I’m not … me… so I completely understand if you need some space right now-“

“What? No,” Keith cuts him off. If anything, he seems annoyed. “I don’t need space. I need my husband back, that’s what I need.”

Hearing Keith use the title explodes behind his chest in a way he’d never thought could be possible. _Husband._ Keith had just called him his husband. It wasn’t a label Shiro ever thought he’d have. Well, maybe once, years and years ago in the early, loved up stages with Adam, before the disease had reared up and Adam started treating him like something broken. Cadet. Lieutenant. Commander. Somehow none of these burrowed into his psyche like the one Keith had just uttered.

For an instant, he’s frozen in place.

Keith immediately looks contrite and then embarrassed. He slams his arms together across his chest and looks away. “I’m sorry, I know this is hard for you too. I just… I just don’t know what to do.”

“I feel like I’m the one who should be apologizing. This is all new to me. I know yesterday we were excited about our honeymoon and that the Shiro you planned that with is gone now, but I-“

“You’re still _you_ ,” Keith bursts out. It comes through gritted teeth. All the frustration in Shiro is echoed in the man beside him, just brimming under the surface of his skin. “You just… you gotta catch up.” Keith glances up at him and offers a helpless shrug of his shoulders. The tension bleeds out a little but it’s still there. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Shiro can’t help the swell inside him at the truth of his words. He can see the fierceness in Keith’s eyes and he’s glad to know at least this was something ever familiar, something Keith hasn’t grown out of.

_Of course he’s not._

_\--_

Shiro comes away from the session with the doctor with no more answers but a clean bill of physical health. Allura tells them to call at any time if anything changes but Shiro just nods and wishes to leave. He wants to go back to the apartment that’s supposed to be his home with Keith. He wants to go back through his life there, scour through video logs for something, looking for anything that will feel familiar and spark some recognition.

They enter the apartment in silence and Keith heads straight to the kitchen to grab them both a drink. Shiro is grateful when Keith hands him a beer, not even questioning if he should be mixing alcohol with… whatever was going on right and feeling his muscles ease ever so slightly as the burn makes its way through his system.

He starts to wander around and even with the beer on his tongue and the tension easing, he feels awkward, a lot like he’s snooping in a place he doesn’t belong. An ungraceful snort makes him glance over to find Keith leaning against a doorframe with his arms once again crossed over his chest. Shiro knows his face is flushed by the heat that steals across his cheeks.

“What?” He can’t keep the defensive tone out of his voice. He’s trying to be polite about this, his grandmother always told him it was rude to snoop, but then was it really snooping if it was your own life you were snooping on?

But it wasn’t just his, he tells himself. It’s Keith’s life too. A life Shiro doesn’t know.

“Stop trying to be polite,” Keith says, rolling his eyes. There’s a twist to his mouth that might be the beginning of a reluctant smile. “You can go through anything you want to.”

Shiro chuckles and hides his discomfort behind another sip of his drink. “Noted,” he mutters, making a concerted effort to throw off the last of his awkwardness.

Keith was right. Tiptoeing around wasn’t going to bring his memories back, but anything else might.

He likes the apartment. It’s not big but its bright enough to feel modern, yet homely enough to be cosy. He can easily see the items he had clearly chosen; he likes the refined style and sharp lines of the dining setting and the art on the walls. He can also see the items that had Keith written all over it – a sketch book on the coffee table, a long couch that looks well-loved and kind of hideous in its olive green tones. He notices a few more soft green plants dotted around, alerting him to the surprising knowledge that Keith has more of a green thumb than he realised. That tidbit feels uncomfortably new so he tucks it away somewhere safe inside him.

But it’s the glass cabinet against the far wall that catches his attention and draws him across the room. It’s filled with awards and plaques behind the glass, a handful of medals on display, a small scale model of the Calypso and of the ship that took them to Kerberos. Shiro creeps closer, his gaze catching something that makes his heart beat louder in his chest.

“Keith, is this… is this your Garrison graduation photo?”

Nearby, Keith ducks his head. He’d unconsciously followed Shiro, hands now shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his beer discarded on the side table nearby. “Yeah. Graduated while you were on your way back from Kerberos.” He pauses for a beat then delivers a blow that leaves Shiro breathless. “Just like you made me promise to.”

Wordlessly, Shiro reaches out to pick up the frame. It’s not big, at least not the photo. The gold foiled certificate is though, framed and displayed pride of place next to another one, his own one. The photo though. The photo makes him smile. It’s Keith in his new Garrison greys, stiff backed, serious faced and just shy of nineteen. He had to work hard to redeem himself after his shaky start at the Garrison but he’d proved Shiro’s faith right and everyone else wrong.

It had happened years ago, but it was new to Shiro and the emotion wells up in him unexpectedly.

“I’m so proud of you,” Shiro says, his eyes stinging a little. His voice is a little hoarse too. It’s hard to convey just how much he means it. “I knew you could do it.”

He looks up to find Keith watching him with an expression he can’t read. His hand twitches, as though he wants to reach out but thought better of it.

“Thanks,” he mutters before seeming to shake himself out of it. He gestures to the wall of awards before drawing his gaze back to Shiro’s. There’s a hint of a challenge there, something smug Shiro hasn’t seen since their sunsets in the desert. “They’re not all yours, you know.”

Shiro grins widely at that. He places the photo gently back on the shelf as something else catches his eye. A note, with the words _Keith Shirogane_ displayed prominently enough to be like another hit to the chest.

Keith Shirogane. It’s a complicated emotion that steals over him then. And a wave of something that borders on dizziness. He fumbles for something to hold onto but the nearest chair is too far away and instead it’s Keith that swoops forward to brace him.

“Shiro?”

“I’m okay,” he gasps, a smatter of stars behind his eyes, a slash of electric violet he can’t explain. Keith grips him tightly, offering him more strength than Shiro had realised he was capable of. He’s warm too, warm enough to smother the chill that tickles down his spine and Shiro’s senses seize on that and cling tight.

Keith leads him towards the couch and Shiro is content to be supported across the room.

“Maybe you should lie down for a bit,” Keith says in that quiet way of his.

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees roughly, although he doesn’t want Keith to let him go. “Maybe.”

It’s hard trying to sort through his jumbled thoughts, harder still with his body suddenly trying to lean into Keith’s touch. Shiro isn’t a small man but Keith holds his weight like he’s as slight as a feather. It’s another jarring reminder that this is a different Keith to the one he remembers. He likes the way Keith’s arm fits around his waist, the way his arm fits against Keith’s shoulders. He likes the smell of Keith’s hair and the thrill his body feels when he soaks up Keith’s warmth.

It’s the crashing of worlds. Shiro’s mind doesn’t remember, but his body does.

Keith helps him to sink into the cushions and Shiro catches a glimpse of the band around Keith’s finger. An avalanche of emotion crashes over him and he doesn’t realise his face is wet with tears until Keith wrapping his arms around him and holding him and god, it feels so good to be held.

Good and safe and for a moment, despite everything… he’s at peace.


End file.
